For six years, the 27 acres at the southwest corner of 146th Street and Shelborne Road did something unusual for land the city already owned: it sat there, mostly unchanged, while anyone who wanted to could walk it. Prairie grass, mature trees, four quarter-mile trail loops, a scattering of port-a-lets on weekends. Carmel Clay Parks and Recreation held the deed, but the place functioned more like an open field than a park.
That ended this summer. The department's website now carries a standing notice: crews began work on the site July 31, and public access is suspended for the duration of construction. If you drive Shelborne Road between Bridlebourne and Zionsville, the empty stretch you've been passing for years now has equipment on it.
Six Years of Almost
The land came into public hands on September 3, 2020. A year later, on September 25, 2021, the parks department opened it to the public on weekends, sunrise to sunset, with a survey link posted so visitors could weigh in on what should go there. Kids' focus groups ran in Carmel schools. SmithGroup, the design firm also behind Central Park and West Park, ran the process. Gregg Calpino, a principal at the firm, put the approach plainly at the time:
"We want people to get out there and get dirty."
By June 14, 2022, the Carmel/Clay Board of Parks and Recreation had adopted a 292-page master plan built from that input. And then, for four years, nothing visible happened. The land stayed open for weekend walks. The fence didn't go up. The plan sat finished, waiting on something the public meetings couldn't produce: money.
What Had to Happen First
When CCPR first acquired the property, the department's own estimate put the full build at roughly $6.5 million in 2020 dollars. That number sat on the page for years as a placeholder, the kind of figure a parks department publishes when it knows the shape of a project but not yet the funding to build it.
The number that actually moved the project came later. At a town hall in March 2025, Parks Director Michael Klitzing told residents that phase one alone, not the whole build, would be financed with roughly $8 million from the city's bond issuance and council appropriations. The opening phase now costs more than the entire park was originally projected to cost. That gap is the real story behind the four-year gap between plan and construction: the project wasn't stalled on design. It was waiting for the city's 2024 infrastructure bond program to generate a funding source large enough to move dirt.
The department isn't treating this as a one-time appropriation, either. Its proposed 2026 budget includes a separate $2 million line item for Bear Creek Park's phase two, filed alongside funding for Monon Boulevard Phase 3 and a floating boardwalk at Founders Park. The build is staged, and the second stage already has a number attached to it before the first stage is finished.
Here's how the six years break down:
| Date | What happened |
|---|---|
| September 3, 2020 | Carmel Clay Parks and Recreation acquires the 27-acre parcel |
| September 25, 2021 | Land opens to the public on weekends for exploration and feedback |
| June 14, 2022 | Board of Parks and Recreation adopts the final master plan |
| July 31, 2026 | Construction crews arrive on site; public access suspended |
What Phase One Actually Builds
According to reporting from late 2025, the first phase centers on the north side of the property and includes a playground, pickleball courts, a multi-use sports court, a picnic shelter, trails, and restrooms. Klitzing's March 2025 remarks add one more piece: initial work on what he called a "signature" elevated viewing amenity, though the department hasn't yet detailed what that structure will look like when finished.
The natural features that made the land worth walking in the first place aren't going away. The plan keeps the prairie grass and mature trees the site was known for, along with Bear Creek itself, the small tributary whose headwaters begin on the east side of the property before it flows toward Little Eagle Creek near Carmel's western edge. The park's name, and the names of the two subdivisions next to it, The Preserve at Bear Creek and Bear Creek South, all trace back to that same stream.
The Part That Crosses Shelborne Itself
The detail most relevant to anyone who actually drives this stretch of road: the Bear Creek Greenway is set to extend west across Shelborne Road itself, connecting into the park's southern section. That's not a trail somewhere inside the property boundary. That's a trail crossing the road Bridlebourne sits on.
Klitzing tied this project to a broader wave of trail investment moving through Carmel's northwest side in the same town hall. He described an extension of the White River Greenway north to 140th Street, complete with a new trailhead and river overlook, and a pedestrian bridge near the 100th and 6th Street alignment meant to connect Hazel Landing Park to Heritage Park in Fishers. Bear Creek Park isn't a standalone amenity being dropped into an empty field. It's one piece of a connected trail system the city is building out in stages, using the same bond funding, at roughly the same time.
What This Means If You're Watching From Shelborne Road
The weekend walks are on hold. The informal access that's existed since 2021, the quarter-mile loops and the open gate on Saturdays and Sundays, is suspended for as long as construction runs. Earlier reporting placed that window at 12 to 18 months from a summer start, which puts substantial completion somewhere between mid-2027 and early 2028, assuming the timeline holds.
What comes after that isn't the finished park. With phase two already carrying a funding line in the 2026 budget before phase one is complete, Bear Creek is being built the way Carmel has built its other recent destination parks: in visible, separately funded stages rather than a single opening day. For anyone who's watched that field sit untouched since 2020, the fence going up this summer is the clearest sign yet that the next stage is actually underway, not just budgeted.
If you've noticed changes along Shelborne Road and want to know what else is in motion nearby, Jennil Salazar keeps a close eye on this corridor and is glad to walk through what's coming next.
